


the pit of tartarus.

by thychesters



Series: thus torn asunder [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: (no one actually dies don't worry), (vaguely; just to be safe), Body Horror, Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied Self-Harm, Jason is Having a Bad Time, Panic Attacks, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Visual Hallucincations, auditory hallucinations, i tried my hand at horror and it got dark and now we gotta sleep with the lights on, listen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26906719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thychesters/pseuds/thychesters
Summary: Jason left the Pit. The Pit didn’t leave Jason.
Series: thus torn asunder [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963240
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	the pit of tartarus.

**Author's Note:**

> i tried my hand at something more ... horror (horrific? yikes). as always, thanks to pen for looking this over; before you guys read, please mind the tags! jason's kind of on an acid trip from hell. no one actually dies in this fic, but the lazarus pit has a tough time letting him go. (for reference, the other purgatory fic ties into this. the other fic is rather tame in comparison.)

It’s easier to pretend it isn’t there, at first. It’s just residual from nightmares, where he’s caught on the cusp of consciousness and blinking sleep from his eyes. He ignores it initially, deciding (hoping) that it, like few other things in life, will leave him be if he does so for long enough.

It doesn’t.

In the beginning it’s simple: a flicker out of the corner of his eye, a voice he can’t make out the words to. There’s the feeling of eyes on him when he’s alone. Some he can attribute to being a trick of the light, and he does so until he can tell it’s anything but. It’s easier to ignore if he keeps himself in constant motion, so he throws himself into various projects, as he decides to call them, so if it isn’t tracking down the leader of a trafficking ring who doesn’t want to be found, it’s reorganizing the layout of the living room of one of his safe houses.

“Shit,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. In the beginning it hadn’t been as strong, but as of late he’s felt it tenfold. Something tugs at the edge of his consciousness like a barely there whisper guiding him along. Intrusive thoughts have never had anything on this.

\-- --

It’s easy to ignore when he first begins training with the teachers Talia sets him up with. A faceless voice or ringing in his ear is easy to tie back to dealing with explosives or blocking out the pained cries of men he’s methodically taking down.

Something tracks him across Europe. It’s in the corner of his eye and then just out of sight.

\-- --

The first time it happens in the middle of a stakeout, it doesn’t register at first. He’s crouched on the top of a high rise on the border of the financial district watching an otherwise boring meet-and-greet between a couple turncoat former Black Mask guys. They’re a couple low-level goons who, truthfully, Jason’s only tracking because he’s bored when there’s a startled, pained scream to his west. He wastes little time taking off in its direction and he’s maybe six blocks out when he comes up empty, surveying the nearby street corners and alleyways, checking for any open windows, though it’s nearing November.

Jason kneels on the corner of the rooftop, filtering through his most recent broadcast signals: the police scanner and back door to Batman’s network, but neither have anything to offer. The nearest call is from two blocks away, a domestic disturbance call because someone was playing their music too loud. He frowns and flits through other channels.

“I need to go to bed,” he mutters himself, struggling to attribute the sound to life in the city and a general lack of sleep. It’s nearing three by the time he gets back, and chances a glance over his shoulder as he slips in through his living room window.

\-- --

There’s something watching him. Jason has enough cameras set up that a fly can’t get by his window without setting something off. Some would consider it overly cautious—a little overzealous, maybe, but there’s so much thing as too careful in this line of work, especially considering how few people he’s had run-ins with would consider him a friend.

Even with all of his safety measures, he can feel something in the corner of the room.

There’s nothing there when he looks, of course, before he goes back to finishing his dishes.

Something reaches for him, and he leaves the light on in his kitchen just in case.

\-- --

“This is so fucking stupid,” he says to no one in particular as he stands in his apartment alone. Something curls around his ankles and he sets to work pulling each and every book off of his shelves before putting them all back up in alphabetical order.

He elects not to spend the night in his place. Instead he throws himself into a patrol of the Bowery, skirting the bulk of Batman’s domain for the evening and avoiding any of the others in his brood as best he can. Oracle reaches out to him once and he’s shorter than he means to be with her before they go back to selectively ignoring one another.

Three hours in there’s another scream again, and he takes off in its general direction, hoping none of the others decide to investigate as well because the last thing he wants to do is deal with one of them. They don’t exactly see eye-to-eye, and Jason’s not about to break out the proverbial olive branch and run the risk of getting another batarang to the neck for it.

This time there’s someone there, and from what he can make out of the shadows there’s a woman about his age, maybe, fingers knotted in her hair; soft moans greet him from where she’s bent in half, arms akimbo and the rest of her body caught in the occasional twitch. It’s dark and for a second her figure seems to disappear on him, like the pause between changing channels on the tv, the split second of darkness in a blink.

“Hey ma’am, can you hear me?” he tries, his voice vaguely distorted as his brow pulls together beneath his helmet. She gives no sign she’s even aware of his presence. He holds his hands up in a placating gesture and moves slowly so as to make himself appear as non-threatening as he can. “Are you hurt? Can you tell me what happened?”

As he steps toward her she moves like the flicker of an old film reel, jerking before she moves back into place and repeats the motion. Jason freezes; she contorts and something in her snaps too loud for a joint being cracked. The sound she makes, one layered beneath the low moan borders on inhumane, like the sound of wind whispering through trees, or something like a death rattle. Jason’s been in enough pain before, endured multitudes in a Lazarus Pit to know that sometimes the body makes noise it shouldn’t, moves in ways it’s not supposed to.

He doubts the random Gothamite is versed in the ways of Ra's al Ghul, however.

“Miss?” he tries again, even as his hand twitches toward the gun strapped to his thigh.

Her jaw isn’t hinged right, and her breath rasps and gurgles as the stain on her shirt grows, blood trickling between her ribs with each shaky exhale. He curses low and under his breath and then she abruptly convulses. The woman drags her hands from her hair, taking small clumps with them, strands ripped from the root wound around her fingers with a shrill cry.

“Holy fuck,” is all he gets out as Sheila Haywood stares back at him.

Jason can’t move; her neck is bent at the wrong angle and then _click-click-click_ s as she rights it. He only stares and her eyes are hollow, gaunt, and dead, ringed in red as she stares back.

She says something, or maybe tries to. Maybe it’s his name, maybe it’s a cry for help, or maybe it isn’t a word at all and her fingers gnarl as her body twists. First she’s upright and then she’s bent over. First her teeth are chipped and jagged and then they’re fine, even if the gums are streaked with blood.

Jason knows he should go for his gun. It presses against his palm and his fingers curl. His legs feel like they’re detached from his body, dragging him down like dead weight as Sheila lurches at him and all he can do is flinch.

She reaches for him and he jerks away, ragged fingernails dragging along the collar of his jacket and the thin strip of skin exposed at the side of his neck just under his helmet as he twists.

She claws at his shoulders, and he shoves her off, heels skidding against the asphalt, and he pulls away hard enough that he all but bounces off the brickwork on the building beside him. Jason hisses through his teeth as he hits the ground, the shock being absorbed by his knees. He glances up to find her looming over him again, bracing herself on the dumpster, and as she leaps at him he lets out a guttural yell before closing his eyes and swinging at her.

His fist doesn’t connect with anything. Jason opens his eyes and finds himself crouched alone in an alley.

“ _Hood, you good?”_ sounds in his ear as he chokes on his next breath, dragging in one and then the other. He peels his glove off before curling his hand over the side of his neck to stem the blood flow, whatever thin trinkle there is in the gouge left behind. His hand feels wet, but as he glances down there’s nothing there.

“Fuck,” he says, still on his knees. 

It’s a struggle to get his bearings back, so he focuses on what he _can_ see, what he can control. The ground is cool beneath him and bits of gravel kick up as his feet shift and he moves to stand. Jason hunches over for a second, closing his eyes again before his vision tunnels on him and working to control his breath. It, like most other practices, is easier done in theory. Something prickles in the corner of his eyes, but for the time being he refuses to acknowledge the tears for what they are. Jason shakes out his shoulders, straightening his jacket out again as he lets out another breath and then drags one back in.

As he fires off a line and sets off running across rooftops in the opposite direction, he doesn’t bother looking back.

Something watches him leave anyway.

\-- --

On the floor of his bedroom, caught between his nightstand and the wall, Jason struggles to ease himself down from a panic attack. He rattles through the five things he can see, four things he can touch, three things he can hear, two that he can smell, and one he can taste. As far as grounding techniques go, he finds it only eases the tension and slows his breathing some.

Something is still looking at him. He can still hear Sheila screaming at him, still see her body convulsing toward him. Beside him, she bends down to whisper in his ear in a voice that sounds sickly sweet as she tells him he never belonged to begin with.

He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and digs his nails into his forehead.

The physical sensation is more grounding than anything, no matter how much it hurts.

\-- --

It’s quiet for a while. He manages to get groceries with little fanfare, and forces himself to attribute the sensation of being followed around the store to the security camera he turns his back to as he pays. He camps out in his safe house on the north side for a couple days, and the sensation eases some—enough for him to associate his delusions to lack of sleep and poor diet, though that argument only goes so far, especially for the stint in the alleyway.

He dreams about Catherine. About Willis. About nameless faces.

He dreams about Batman.

Jason wakes up in a cold sweat.

He can feel the cool metal of a crowbar in his hands. When he looks down there’s dried blood caked under his fingernails.

\-- --

“Jason,” he hears one night, and he spins on his heel, throwing his toothbrush hard enough it leaves a mark on the wall. He frowns, eyes narrowing as he surveys his surroundings and comes up with nothing.

Something curls over his shoulder.

In the mirror Batman looks back at him, but then he’s not in the mirror and Jason eyes the claw marks on the side of his neck. There are three jagged lines running down the broken skin, and then Batman stands beside him to admire his handiwork.

“Jesus fuck,” Jason says, fully prepared to tell the man to fuck off, that he doesn’t want to talk and even if he did, it’s going to be on his terms and not because Bruce decided to climb in a window in the middle of the night. “Breaking and entering is a felony, you know.”

Batman cocks his head, but something about it doesn’t feel right. It’s distorted, almost. Something whispers in the edges of his vision. There’s a tug in the core of his very being. Behind the cowl, his eyes aren’t quite right—rather than covered by impassive lenses, they’re too hollow, dull, red-rimmed and staring right through him, right into him. Jason is backed into the sink and the feeling of being caged threatens his very being.

“Get out,” Jason grits through his teeth, and Batman only stares back at him. There’s an emptiness to him, like a shadow of shadow, crisscrossing where the light from two rooms meet and don’t quite reach the corner of another.

“No,” he intones in a voice that almost feels like it echoes; it’s a whisper that carries across a cavern, loud enough to be heard but soft enough the words can’t be made out.

Jason twists and then Batman’s reflected back at him in the mirror, a mockery of hands come up to rest on his shoulders. What are supposed to be fingers curl, and he can feel the nails biting into the material of his sweatshirt and his skin.

“You never were supposed to come home,” he says in a voice that’s layered, Batman’s on top of Bruce’s, on top of Ra’s, on top of Willis, on top of his own. Batman’s teeth click. Jason shrugs him off as best he can, whirling unto Batman is forced one step back and then another, the bath mat folding in on itself under his feet.

Batman’s entire body shifts like a convulsion, something skittering up his legs and into his chest, and Jason can only watch in horror as his facial features shift into something unrecognizable, something with too many teeth and no body, and then something grotesque with no discernible shape. Something clicks in the back of its throat, gnarled tendrils he assumes are meant to be fingers reach for him, and with few other options Jason reaches up to plant his hands on where its shoulders as supposed to be and gives it a solid shove. 

He feels like he’s been branded and he clutches his hands to his chest, vision blurring as the pain shoots up his arms and toward his chest. Batman falls backwards, eyes flickering at the last second, and it doesn’t register until it hits with the wall with a resounding crack and groan, neck broken and vertebrate pressing against the skin as it lets out one last gurgle.

Jason backs into the sink, the lip of the counter pressing so hard into his hip it almost hurts, and in a blink Bruce is sprawled on the floor before him, fingers twitching in the last throes of muscle spasms.

“You,” he says in a voice not unlike his own. Jason watches wide-eyed as blood trickles in the corner of his mouth, something like ichor, an inky black ooze that bubbles and collects in his collar and then drags across the carpet. His fingers twitch and there’s a voice in his subconscious that says _son, please_ and _your father misses you_ and _why aren’t you dead yet?_

Bruce smiles.

“It’s almost time.”

Jason backs into the shower curtain as Bruce laughs, and laughs, and gurgles, and wheezes, and laughs.

\-- --

Catherine brushes Jason’s hair out of his face as he lies curled on the floor of his bathroom, cheek pressed into the cold tile. She does not register. He does not look at her.

Her hands are cool, fingers gnarled and bent at odd angles. As she moves he can see her shadow jerk, form shifting. Sometimes her hand is missing, sometimes she isn’t there at all. With each movement there’s a whisper he can’t make out, can’t focus on long enough to. Pain ricochets up his arms until he’s left in tremors; the back of his head pounds as the ache spreads to the space between his eyes and then down to his jaw. He shouldn’t be here with her. He should be out, should be fighting back. His body doesn’t work. He can’t feel it, doesn’t exist. His limbs lock and he rattles against her. Tears prickle in the corner of his eyes before dropping to the tile.

Forehand.

She alternates between humming and silence, and perhaps that is more unsettling than anything.

Backhand.

“I’m going to kill you,” Catherine says and Jason chokes as his body forgets how to breathe. Spots dance across his vision as the room starts darkening and closing in on himself. He’s floating but sinking at the same time, and something curls around his neck as it drags him, tendrils coalescing down his arms where they’re locked together. He’s choking, drowning, and his legs don’t remember how to expand. Catherine coos and brushes damp hair away from his sweaty temple.

His vision tunnels before it shatters into fragments that just as abruptly piece themselves back together.

“You never did come home,” she says, and Jason squeezes his eyes shut as she bends to kiss his cheek.

\-- --

Nightwing is found down in an alley in Chinatown.

Red Robin goes missing, last seen near the Holy Church of Christ in Old Gotham.

Red Hood is not seen for two weeks.

\-- --

Jason is dead.

Jason is alive.

Jason is.

\-- --

not supposed to be.

\-- --

waking up in a grave with a tombstone for a young man killed in his prime. He assumes it is another nightmare at first. Another bad dream, another bout of torment and delusions. He closes his eyes. Opens them. Reaches up and presses his hand against the lining of a very real coffin and chokes.

In hindsight, Jason had seen this coming at some point in time. Now, too, all of his training, all of those years spent on the run and honing skills is for nothing as panic sets in. This is too familiar. Digging his way out of his own grave had never been a point of pride for him, traumatic as it was; doing so once had been enough. To do it twice is all too emotional, mentally, physically taxing.

There’s a part of him that struggles to be pragmatic about it, but that part is quickly overridden as the fight or flight instead takes over and evolves into pure fear. He knows he should conserve his oxygen, that shallow breaths will only make the situation worse. But the knowing and the execution are two completely separate things.

Jason suffocates. His body is not found.

\-- --

Dick shows up at his apartment. As well read as he is, Jason has a few choice words for him, primarily limited to “fuck” and “off.”

It’s easier to focus on the anger, to channel it all into rage into words he can’t take back. His body feels like it’s burning, but then he can’t feel it. The shadow twists behind Dick, and something crosses his features as Jason smacks his hand away again. He doesn’t feel it. Dick’s probably not even here, just like Bruce was but wasn’t.

“You should have stayed in that pit we left you to rot in,” Dick spit outs, and the laugh Jason lets out is trite, short, and bitter. It’s too loud in a room that’s too quiet, but then it’s quickly lost amongst the rest of the whispers gathering at the sides of his throat where they’re ready to curl their fingers around it and choke him.

“Oh, you would have loved that, wouldn’t you?” Jason drags his hands through his hair, nails scraping against the jagged scars spider webbing across the should-be broken bits of his skull. “That’s what I have coming to me, isn’t it?”

Maybe it’s what he deserves. Maybe he was better that way.

No he wasn’t.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them again Dick’s looking at him from the other side of the kitchen island in confusion. Jason thinks it could be abject horror, huh.

“Jason, what are you talking about?”

He’s burning. He feels like he’s being pulled apart all over again.

\-- --

There is something in the wall. Jason knows this. But it’s not the wall, per say, since the Bat Cave doesn’t exactly have walls, technically, but an amalgamation of rock face and metal struts jammed into it. There’s something curling in the dark, just out of sight, something he catches in the corner of his eye and vanishes as soon as he glances over. He sees it outside, too, something slithering after him through his safe house; it coalesces in the middle of a stakeout, and he loses his edge when he feels it skitter up his spine. He leaves the light on one night, just in case, and feels a shadow peel itself apart.

He doesn’t want to be in the Cave. All it does is watch him. His gaze flickers toward the abyss that stares right back at him, and he can feel its reach. Despite his layers, he runs cold, cool tendrils like fingers closing over his shoulders.

“Jason,” Bruce says, and his eyes snap back to him. For a split second his neck is bent at the angle it was when Jason broke it, but then he blinks and Bruce raises an eyebrow at him. A line of worry forms between his eyebrows. “You with us?”

There are eyes and other eyes on him. Jason’s fingers curl into the arms of his chair with a white knuckled grip beneath his gloves. Blood and saliva pools in his mouth. He clears his throat.

“Yeah, ‘m fine.”

\-- --

Jason left the Pit. The Pit didn’t leave Jason.


End file.
